Cultural Aspects of the Middle-Income Trap

In the early 1990s, following the rise of the "Four Asian Tigers", most developing nations were "startled" and sought to "imitate" them to take off as new Newly Industrialized Economies (NIEs).However, to this day, only 34 economies have successfully escaped the Middle-Income Trap (MIT), while 108 other countries are still at risk of falling into it.Escaping the MIT is a huge challenge that isn't simply about overcoming economic barriers to optimize growth processes.The paper analyzes how oncepoor East Asian nations became NICs (Newly Industrialized Countries).Alongside spectacular economic reasons, there were also cultural reasons, which were perhaps even more spectacular: they revitalized traditional values, awakened a love for learning, a spirit of diligence, and a sense of community responsibility.They focused on education and science and ignited a desire for democracy and a healthy will to develop.Due to its cultural similarities with the NICs, Vietnam has a burning ambition to "become a dragon", yet it has not taken off as of 2020 and today.The cultural reasons for falling into the MIT include: a prejudiced attitude towards the wealthy; insufficiently inclusive development institutions; corruption as a major driver for group interests; a misguided attitude of selfcongratulation on achievements; education that chases after empty titles; science that falls into pseudo-problems; and a lack of values like justice, righteousness, democracy, and freedom.To escape the middle-income trap, if the economic reason is to optimize growth processes and resources, then the cultural reason is to build healthy drivers for development.